I once borrowed a movie from one of my friends about the elite schools of the Third Reich, the NPEA (Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten), and more widely known as Napola. I don’t have a great passion for WWII litterature or movies but this one really caught me. The cruelty that some of the students experienced was mindboggling.

  One of the boys frequently wet his bed. This of course didn’t go unnoticed. Or unpunished. This kid is tortured by his teachers until he completely breaks down. Or this was at least my opinion.

  In one scene the boys are taught throwing grenades. Now this one kid drops his grenade and I start to think this might be a very short movie but the bedwetter from before launches forward and drops down on the grenade just as it goes off. In one of the next scenes we see his funeral where he is hailed as a hero for saving the lives of his fellow students.

  I mentioned this scene to my friend as i returned the movie. What he said was this: “That scene is great. It really shows how much he wanted his name to be honored and how much The Reich valued honor over everything else.” This was not the response I had expected. Where I saw a kid who had had enough of the horrors and cruelties he was being put through daily, my friend saw a boy who wanted honor above everything else and grabbed it even though it meant killing himself.

  It’s funny how two people can have so different views on the same thing.